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Anyway, here it is;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1573750,00.html
the idea that 4 million people have at some point taken 'class a drugs' becomes alot more believable when you consider that the stats encompass the lives of those aged 16-59. This encompasses the youth of many generations and particularly those who would have made up the main demographic of the Acid/rave scene for example. There are several problems with these figures in terms of representativness.
By simply using the term 'Class a drugs' it lumps in many substances that have widely varying effects and potential problems, as well as condensing any incidents of acute drug use (such as the heroin epidemic in 80's/90's Glasgow & Edinburgh for example) into a singular figure. Conversely though this is at best a conservative estimate of the number of people who have done this, for reasons of finite sampling (obviously it cant include everyone, even though the BCS survey group is pretty extensive these days) and interviewer bias on the part of respondants, some of which may not want to disclose such acts even under suppose conditions of confidence.
What it does again ram home is the idea that prohibition doesnt work at least in the current context. The spectacular failure of 'just say no' wasn't just bad policy; incorrect information and unrepresentative scare tactics helped destroy confidence in official and governmental channels as sources of authoritative advice for users for fine examples of this are the advice of the 'Sun Doctor' Vernon Coleman in 1989, telling people that if they took E and were scared of Spiders they'd start seeing giant ones :no:
This should'nt really surprise anyone, but should serve as a catalyst for informed and proactive, research led and evidence based drug policy.
You say that as though any of the current political parties would dream of doing this.
I know what you're getting at but what else is there? Just give up? Just so no?
God only knows, politics is just one big bugger up of horrid legislation at the moment, my spleen isnt anywhere near big enough for the amount of bile that these foul people create in me.
Its like getting the Hutton report every day for a year, truely things are bad and they are getting a lot worse. We wont even have trial by jury by the time of the next election.
I really dont know, thats the problem, there isnt anything else, the UK is really in a downward spiral and I have no idea when or if it will stop.
And I am entirely serious about trial by jury, they are removing it piece by piece.
Once we have pulled out of the EU treaty of human rights, which we probably will then we are truely buggered.